Twenty Impossible Years

The last time I saw my father, my wedding

Twenty years ago my father died. My parents split up when I was 14 and I stayed with my dad. He was my whole family, the person who I depended on to know everything, be everything. I was 24 when he died. I had been married for five months. Suddenly everything that was good about my childhood fell away.

He has missed knowing me as an adult. He had missed meeting and knowing his grandsons. I see things all the time and think, "He would have loved this." Sometimes it's a song, a book, a joke, a meal, a moment. All the things he's missed these last twenty years. 

After twenty years it still feels impossible that he is gone.